


A Little Piece of Hell

by lilithtorch2



Series: CA2TWS Speculations [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Gen, If you squint you could make a case for Romanogers in here, Minor Violence, Speculation, Spoilers, Who actually remembered it correctly?, but there are spoilers, not canon compliant for the most part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-17 05:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1375891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithtorch2/pseuds/lilithtorch2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>THERE ARE SPOILERS!!! </p><p>The Winter Soldier had assassinated so many people that he'd lost track,  but there were only two people, a blonde and a redhead, who the Winter Soldier could never kill, only wound. Their existence constantly reminded him of his failures.</p><p>Why couldn't he kill them?</p><p>And why did they keep coming back for him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Winter Soldier

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [let the memories be good for those who stay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1375315) by [QueenWithABeeThrone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone). 



> Was listening to A7x - A Little Piece of Heaven when I wrote this, hence the title, but this fic does not relate to the song at all. Except maybe "we're all gonna die sometime."
> 
> THERE ARE SPOILERS. Even if it's not canon-compliant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over and over again  
> I relive the moment  
> I'm bearing the burden within  
> Open wounds hidden under my skin
> 
> -Dream Theater, "The Enemy Inside"

He let them live again.

And again.

And again.

He didn’t even know how many people he’d assassinated. It was all too easy: head shot ‘em, stab ‘em in the heart, cut their heads off. Make ‘em bleed until they’re crying for their mama, until they’re not crying for their mama anymore.

So why, then, were there two people he could never kill?

She was a redhead; he was a blonde.

It should have taken all but two seconds.

Aim for the heart, aim for the head. Pull the trigger, watch them go dead.

Something told him no.

Every time he met the blonde, he couldn’t kill him. Hell, he even saved the bastard. Guy was in a vulnerable position. He could easily break his knees so he couldn’t walk, snap his neck, stab him in the eyes. Take the shield for his own, remake it in his own image. But he made a different call instead.

_The eyes that seemed to know him._

Every time he met the redhead, he couldn’t kill her, even when it was in his best interests to. He shot through her to get to the target but letting her live meant she’d retaliate if they met again. It was much more efficient to kill everyone who could avenge the dead. So why did he let her live?

_She never retaliated._

He killed everyone else, but he couldn’t kill them. They were a constant reminder of his failures and their existence overshadowed all of his successes. They were his mistakes.

But then, why, when they could have run away, did they keep coming back for him again?

And again?

And again?


	2. The Black Widow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Say what you mean  
> Tell me I'm right  
> And let the sun rain down on me  
> Give me a sign  
> I want to believe
> 
> -Panic! At the Disco, "The Ballad of Mona Lisa"
> 
> Based on the Richard Harrow sequence in Boardwalk Empire where he saves a boy

“You can’t kill me!” The target screamed at the Winter Soldier.

Natasha had been going undercover as the target’s meek secretary and somehow she’d been made. When the Winter Soldier came for them the target had already been prepared and grabbed Natasha by the waist, holding a knife to her throat. The knife dug into her skin, and she could feel a drop of blood sliding downward. The target was a desperate man surrounded by desperate weapons, and his guards held a gun to the Winter Soldier’s head. She would have kicked the man holding her with her foot, but then what would the Winter Soldier do? They were probably capable of killing everyone else in this room, but the emotional stakes were higher. Make one false move and their enemies would kill either of them.

“Try to kill me and she dies.”

The Winter Soldier did not respond and only had his gun pointed at her and their target.

“I know she’s your little whore.”

How did he find out? Natasha could see the Winter Soldier’s shoulders tense.

“So if you want her to live,” the target warned, “put the gun down.”

The Winter Soldier blinked a couple times, as if trying to level his head.

“Put the damn gun down!”

He nodded and, while still maintaining eye contact with Natasha, lowered the gun to the ground.

“We never miss,” the Winter Soldier said finally.

“We?”

Natasha understood what the Winter Soldier was hinting at and braced for impact. It all happened simultaneously. He shot Natasha through the abdomen and into their target as a distraction and used his free arm to pull a knife from his boot and throw it behind him at one of the bodyguards without looking. Natasha collapsed, but used her remaining strength to shoot the rest of the bodyguards while the target was still frozen from the shock. The Winter Soldier swiftly dispatched him, burying a bullet in his head.

She tried to breathe; she was sure the Winter Soldier was going to berate her for making a mistake, for letting their target find out her weakness. _Their_ weakness.

He didn’t.

“I’m sorry.”

He only apologized for shooting her that way. She said she understood. Then he rushed her to see a doctor.

The only reason Natasha didn’t tell Steve all of this is because it’s not what he needed to hear. He saw the Winter Soldier as a threat, and that’s exactly how she would paint him.

She wasn’t going to tell Steve that she’d seen a different man altogether that day. She had to paint herself as a victim, too…

Or Steve might think she was a traitor.

And that was the kind of hell she didn’t want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Natasha talks about the Winter Soldier in the movie, there's just one thing that bugs me: if I remember right, she tells Steve that the Winter Soldier shot through her abdomen to kill his target. At least, that's how some articles are interpreting it. However, the location of her bullet wound is, well... how does one go about doing that? Just from an FPS pov, it can't be from a distance, because there are other ways for the Winter Soldier to have done that, unless they were in a very narrow hallway. Then the angles don't make sense; I mean, how tall was this target? For s/he to have been killed just from a shot through someone else's abdomen, s/he would have to be pretty damn short, right? I guess he could have shot her from the ground while she was high up, but again, there are other ways for the Winter Soldier to complete his mission.
> 
> And if I misheard and she told Steve she was shot at so the Winter Soldier could get _to_ the target, it still doesn't make sense, because he's the world's greatest assassin. He'd have killed her first to prevent her from fighting back. But nope. In the movie, he either kicks people into oblivion or shoots them without so much as a glance, but there are two people he doesn't do that to: Steve and Natasha. Why? Hmmm!


	3. Captain America

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know a part about life  
> Is just a waking dream  
> Well I know what you mean  
> But that ain't how it seems right here, right now
> 
> How can this be real?  
> I can barely feel  
> Anymore
> 
> \- NIN "The Good Soldier"

“Bucky?”

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

Natasha had told him who the Winter Soldier was: a ruthless killer credited with at least two dozen assassinations. That didn’t prepare him for this at all. You defeated enemies; you didn’t kill your friends.

What do you do when your enemy is – was – your friend?

It couldn’t be. The Winter Soldier couldn’t be Bucky.

Right…Bucky was possessed by a demon. This wasn’t Bucky. This wasn’t Bucky; even the Winter Soldier himself had all but said so. It was just someone with Bucky’s face and Bucky’s voice.

That was the only way to explain this. He couldn’t believe anything else.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that it looked like him; it _was_ him. Steve wasn’t the only one to time travel from the past to the future after all?

It couldn’t be.

Steve  could only cast his eyes downward and relive the guilt over and over again. Had he known Bucky was still alive, he would have done everything to help him. If he’d known that Bucky had survived the fall, he would have jumped off the train after him.

He didn’t. He never did. He had comforted himself with the knowledge that Bucky had at least died peacefully. Now that belief had been proven wrong to his face.

_Are you ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?_

Steve didn’t know it’d end up like this.

_That little guy from Brooklyn that was too dumb not to run…I’m following him._

Not like this. Please god, not like this. Please tell me I’m dreaming. This is a dream, and I’ll wake back up in the 1940s and Bucky will still be there, flirting with women and I’ll still be the same scrawny punk. There was no war, he wasn’t an Avenger, he wasn't Captain America, there were no aliens, and he and Bucky were living out the rest of their lives, sitting in rocking chairs with their hair white from age.

If he’d known it’d end up this way, he would have done everything in his power to get Bucky away from it all.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

I did this to Bucky.


	4. Lost and Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life's not meant to be disposable  
> Lost. Found. Dead.  
> Ready and willing  
> Can't stop the bleeding  
> Life's not meant to be expendable  
> Rain. Sun. Gone.  
> Left robbed unwilling  
> Can't fight the feeling
> 
> -Mudvayne "Rain. Sun. Gone."

“You’re my friend.”

The Winter Soldier had read the blonde’s expression: he was not lying. He wasn’t stupid; there were things that didn’t make sense about him. He heard the whispers about him, the claims that he wasn't Russian, but he'd stopped asking questions asking a long time ago and always gave up, because he knew he wouldn't get any answers.

 _Both the blonde and the redhead looked at him like they knew_ _him._

Captain America really and truly believed he was someone named James. Maybe he was; maybe he wasn't. Whoever that was, he was gone.

But if he really was someone named James?

Maybe that would help fill in the blanks. It would certainly explain why he kept saving the man when they were supposed to be enemies. It would explain the headaches, the fleeting images that never came to fruition. The Winter Soldier looked down at the unconscious form of Captain America, who had shed a tear.

_I'll be with you until the very end._

Was he supposed to feel something in return? All he knew was that Captain America was the key to the past he couldn't remember; that's why he saved him. He didn't feel anything else beyond that. Was he supposed to feel grateful? In another situation, maybe. Right now, there was no mission for him to complete. He felt nauseous; it was the same feeling that had dug itself deep into his chest when he fought the redhead. If Captain America was right, then he'd lost everything. He wondered if he should stay next to the man until he woke up, but what would he say after that?

"Have we met before?"

"I'm sorry I tried to kill you?"

"I'm sorry I can't feel anything for you, but this Bucky must have been someone important?"

"I look like him but I can't be that person for you?"

Instead of waiting, he made sure that Captain America was still breathing and let him live another day.

When he visited the Captain America museum later, he still couldn't feel anything for Capta-Steve Rogers even though he felt like he should. Instead, he felt rage; he had a brother who was taken from him. He had somehow traveled from the past to the present, and in the process, he had been erased, unmade, many, many times over. He was just a hollow shell of whoever he had been. He could never be as honorable as Bucky Barnes. He should have been dead.

He was _still here._

The pain had nothing to do with Steve. The pain had everything to do with the lies he'd chosen to believe in. Who was he now that he wasn't Bucky or the Winter Soldier anymore?

He realized he had one final mission after all:

He was going to find everyone who did this to him.

They were all going to pay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually don't want the Winter Soldier to have his memories restored. Imo, It'd be interesting to see a Winter Soldier that still chooses to trust Steve (and Natasha?) anyway despite not remembering anything. That and I anticipate him going on a revenge spree first (there was ominous music. That's how i know) before settling down.
> 
> The title of this chapter is from the Mudvayne album of the same name.


	5. Post-Credits Scene: Iron Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue  
> I could not foresee this thing happening to you  
> If I look hard enough into the setting sun  
> My love will laugh with me before the morning comes
> 
> \- Rolling Stones, "Paint It Black"

Howard Stark didn’t know how it happened. It was late at night. He was driving home from a party with his wife at his side, and the next thing he knew, he’d hit something.

Pain.

Gone.

When he came to, he stared at his wife. He couldn't tell if she was dead or not. At first, he blamed his drinking for this. Gin, rum, whiskey: these had been his helpers to get through each and every day. He didn’t even remember when it began. It had started small, and then it piled up over the years, so much that he couldn’t remember any of the little things, like Tony’s first steps, his graduation from M.I.T. at seventeen. He knew why it continued, though: the discovery of the one secret that made it seem as if everything that he, Peggy, Captain America, and everyone else had fought for…

Was completely useless.

Summoning his last strength, he forced himself to get out of the car and do something-anything. Call the cops or- How had the car malfunctioned? It wasn't supposed to do that; he'd checked. Had he and Maria been attacked? He couldn't remember. Was he just getting old? Howard collapsed on the ground below and crawled until his hands found two black boots in the darkness. He looked up and found blue eyes staring down at him.

"James...Buchanan Barnes?"

It couldn't be James. This was a clone, an LMD, someone with a really good make-up artist. No, with the right technology, there was a chance it was really him, although Howard was amazed he was still approximately the same age. Steve had mentioned that James had fallen from the train into ice...cryogenic preservation maybe? Or maybe...this was really a ghost, like in A Christmas Carol. In the end, he would learn some lesson and they'd all hold hands and sing.

“What are you talking about? Is that my name?”

“You were...Steve Rogers’ friend. He called you 'Bucky.'” Howard coughed out blood. Well, if this was a weird chance for redemption, then he'll take it. “He spoke fondly of you, you know.”

"Steve?" The man's eyes widened.

Hmm. Something about this man's reaction convinced Howard that this was James Barnes, in the flesh. He'd survived through cryogenic preservation, then. Howard remembered Steve's grief over his brother's death; he wished Steve were still here so he could tell him that James was still alive.

But Steve was already dead...or was he?

The existence of James Barnes posed so many questions that, in another time, would have sparked his curiosity. Now, though, he was not in any position to research. The man formerly known as James Buchanan Barnes only shed tears. His eyes were red. He pointed his gun at Howard again.

“Bucky Barnes is dead.”

“I see.” Howard recalled his mother telling him about life and death. He certainly had regrets, especially when it came to Tony, but he'd done a lot in his lifetime already. This was it. Time to face the music. “I just have one request, then.”

“What would that be?”

"Don’t kill my boy.”

* * *

Tony Stark found out along with the public that his parents were killed in a car accident, and at the age of twenty-one, he became the CEO of Stark Industries. He always thought the alcohol would kill his father eventually and was surprised it had taken this long.

He just wished it hadn’t killed his mother too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am pretty sure Deathlok is next-gen Winter Soldier. Why brainwash when you can control them through implanted tech?


End file.
